The curtain has closed on DRUPA 2000 and the fairground lights have faded, returning Dusseldorf, Germany, to normal. The grand dame of international shows is over for another four years. But while the steady hum of new presses that once filled the air in Dusseldorf has gone silent, the buzz surrounding much of the technology has increased.

That DRUPA buzz will turn to cacophony on Sept. 24th in Chicago's McCormick Place complex as Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2000 picks up where the international show-of-shows left off. Running through Sept. 27th, the recently expanded Graph Expo will be, for many U.S. printers, a first look at the future of printing presented in Germany.

What are American printers anticipating? Printing Impressions polled a group of key commercial printing executives on the state of color management, PDF workflows, remote proofing, digital asset management and thermal CTP platesetting.

Dome Printing on Color Management
There will never be one industry color standard—and that is not an industry catastrophe, says Tim Poole, vice president of Sacramento, CA-based Dome Printing. "We can live by color standards, but you have to be able to print to those standards," he remarks. Poole believes that there are so many substrates and technologies that the industry must contend with, that there are simply too many different variables. "To try to contain them to one standard is really going to do an injustice to the industry," he claims.

So, what is Poole's solution? Simply, set your own standards. Poole admits that "a few years ago, I was frustrated when we purchased all our Creo equipment. I thought it should be Creo's responsibility to establish the color standards to which the equipment functioned, but Creo told us to create our own. I've come to realize that they were right. It is our responsibility to adopt our own standards."